The present invention relates to a manual sweeping apparatus which can be manually passed over an original, thereby to read image information from the original and write the image information into a memory, and which can be manually moved across a piece of paper, thereby to read the image information from the memory and print the image information on the piece of paper.
Japanese Patent Disclosure No. 55-115773 (Applicant: Kabushiki Kaisha Ricoh; Inventors: Seiiti Nakamura, and Yojiro Sato) discloses a manual sweeping copier. The operational characteristics of this copier are as follows: (1) The copier is manually passed over an original, thus reading image information from the original. (2) The image information thus read is written into a memory. (3) The copier is then manually moved across a piece of paper, reads out the image information from the memory and prints the information on the piece of paper.
It is possible that the copier may be passed over an original even after the memory is filled to capacity with image information. It is also possible that the copier may be passed across a piece of paper even after all information is read out from the memory and printed on the paper. Therefore, the copier may fail to read all image data which the operator wishes to read when it is passed over the original after the memory is filled to capacity with image information, and may unnecessarily consume electric power, ink ribbon, paper and so on, when it is passed across a piece of paper even after all information has been read from the memory and printed on the paper.